Virginia Apologizes for Slavery

One hundred and forty-four years after the Emancipation Proclamation, three hundred and eighty-eight years after the first Africans were traded by English privateers for water and supplies to the colony at Jamestown, one hundred and seventy-six years after Nat Turner's ill-fated rebellion, Virginia apologizes for slavery.

It also apologized for its 400 year history of exploitation of its native-Americans.  For two hundred and fifty years, it has been the policy of Virginia to re-classify all of its native American people as Colored.  For three hundred and sixty-five years, Virginia refused to allow those same Coloreds to vote.  By magically changing all native Americans to Colored not only deprived those same people of basic rights of citizenship, it denied them the right to a heritage.  They were not welcome as Whites and they were denied their Indianess.  I have no doubt that if the South had not lost the Civil War, Virginia would have attempted to enslave all its Colored population.  So steeped is Virginia's history in ugly racism, that it was a mere 83 years ago that Virginia passed its Racial Integrity Law which required all citizens not pure White to register within the county of their residence and provided penalties for anyone attempting to pass themselves off as White.  In the person of Walter A. Plecker, Virginia's Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, Virginia had a fierce protector of the White race.  Plecker was zealous in his efforts to make sure Virginia's Indians and tri-racials, such as Melungeons, were properly listed as Colored.

It was a mere 345 years ago that Virginia passed a law overturning hundreds of years of English common law and declared that henceforth a child's status derives from its mother and not its father, or  born slave, die slave.  Six years later, Virginia passed a law taxing free Black women, and just so there wouldn't be any doubt, the law "said that 'negro women, though permitted to enjoy their freedome' could not have the rights of 'the English.'"

Three hundred and sixteen years ago Virginia forbade the marriage of non-Whites to Whites.  It's my understanding they used the exact same law to attack same-sex marriages three hundred, thirteen years later in 2004.  Okay, I'm joking.  They paraphrased.

Virginia has a lot of be sorry for.  It's just my luck to be at the receiving end of Virginia's bigotry twice in 400 years.  The first time was when my tri-racial ancestors were forced to migrate from Virginia in the early to middle 1700s.  At least two of my family lines originated in Virginia, the Bunch and Chavers families.  The second time has been these past ten years as Virginia has taken the lead in passing nastive, punitive laws against Gays and Lesbians. 

Virginia, mother of bigots and presidents, still has a hateful streak.  The new Coloreds in Virginia these days are Gays.  Virginia has led the nation in punitive laws aimed at homosexuals.  Consenting adults are now prohibited by Virginia law from making legally-binding contracts that might tend to suggest that they are somehow a couple.  Virginia courts routinely savage the rights of same-sex parents in ways that are as arbitrary as were their laws regarding racial purity.

Actually, Virginia has a thing about homosexuals.  This from EqualityVirginia:

• In 2006 Virginia voters ratified an amendment to the Virginia Constitution banning marriage equality for gay and lesbian Virginians, and denying legal relationship recognition for all unmarried couples.
• Earlier, in 2004, the Virginia General Assembly passed the "Affirmation of Marriage Act" (HB 751) banning civil unions and other contract rights for same-sex couples in the state.
• In Virginia, it is permissible to discriminate against someone in employment, housing, banking or public accommodations based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
• Virginia does not allow second-parent adoptions for unmarried couples, leaving these families and children without critical protections.
• Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression are not included in the state's hate crimes law.
• Although it is inconsistent with the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Virginia still has not repealed the so-called "crimes against nature" law making sodomy a Class 6 felony.

All in the name of Jesus, amen.  The Bible thumpers condemning Gays are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Bible thumpers who said a mere 350 years ago that slavery was the proper condition of non-White people. 

Oh Virginia.  You've been wrong as many times as Bush and Cheney.  I'd like to think this apology will sensitize you to the evil you do in the name of your god, but I seriously doubt it.  Your apology means little without contrition and your treatment of Gays and Lesbians shows the ugliness of your heart.  You don't stop being a whore because you grow too old and can't get tricks.  You're still a whore, you're just out of work. 

Comments

[Shenida Weave]

Virginia's promise sounds about as empty as Hillary's promise to love her gays... a state apology does erase 400 years of history... especially when such blatantly discriminatory laws still exist on the books, even after court cases have rendered them useless...

[Lab Kat]

The South is so... forward-thinking.

[brenda]

Wow, you've got an AMEN from Arkansas! It amazes me the ways the more ardent of the Bible thumpers can interpret things to fit their own misguided beliefs.

[brenda]

P.S. The Mississippi Squirrel has long been one of my favorite tales of redemption. ha!